Tokyo Metropolitan University was reborn in April 2005 through a merge of Tokyo Metropolitan University, Metropolitan University of Science and Technology, Tokyo Metropolitan Health Sciences University and Metropolitan College. The Corporation now consists of two universities and one technical college after opening Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology and joined by Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Technical College since the merge. The Center aims for contributing to promote local industries through feeding back University’s intellectual resources to the society. We interviewed with Shigeru Kusama, general manager at the Center.

Sponsoring 40 seminars or exhibitions every year

Benefits of collaborations between companies and universities include, on the enterprise side: risk diversification, driving development speeds and obtaining outside knowledge and information, and on the university side: securing research funds, feeding back seeds to the society and grasping needs of the industry segment. When successful, both sides can enjoy significant benefits.
In order to collaborate successfully, it is essential for the University to provide information to the companies first. The Center sponsors 40 seminars or exhibitions as well as holding presentation conferences, by the whole university corporation, for research seeds as places for more than 900 academics to publish their research outcomes. We also work on various measures such as publishing annual reports on research seeds in order to activate industry/ academia/ government collaborations. These efforts have born fruits in many ways such as commercializing research results and growing human resources who assist collaborations among industries, schools and public sectors.

Making significant efforts in providing environments to revitalize industries

The Tama area, dense with universities and companies, has been a valuable place for industries in Tokyo and also offers suitable environments for business developments. However, even better environments should be prepared in order to attract and grow businesses. The Center has been promoting to build networks among industries, academia and governments with such organizations as private companies and the Metropolitan Industry Revitalization Association, a general incorporated association dubbed TAMA Industry Revitalization Association where TAMA also stands for Technology Advanced Metropolitan Area (HPを見て勝手に付け加えました). Last year, it applied with Tokyo and related bodies to the country as an academia-industry collaboration facility and was successfully approved. We will continue to improve region’s environments further by cooperating with related bodies.

Upgrading ourselves with an eye on stronger ties with governments

We are planning to locate coordinators to tie up with governments and join specialized fairs and exhibitions in order to enhance Tokyo Metropolitan University’s collaboration works between businesses and academia. We will be working on revitalizing industries as well as functioning as a university satisfying expectations from everybody who engages in manufacturing.